3 CAS were closely associated with EX-PMC Bank MD: EOW charge sheet

MUMBAI: The supplementary charge sheet — filed by the economic offences wing (EOW) in the ₹6,670-crore Punjab Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank fraud case on Wednesday — states that the three accused chartered accountants (CA) who regularly carried out audits for the bank were closely associated with Joy Thomas, former managing director of the bank, and that he played a role in hiring one of them.

The three CAS are statutory auditors Jayesh Sanghani and Ketan Lakdawala, and concurrent auditor Anita Kirdat. The 12,200-page charge sheet also names four of the bank’s board of directors as accused in the case. An EOW officer said, “A few more directors are wanted in the case, but we did not arrest them owing to their deteriorating health conditions. They are all senior citizens.”

The secondary charge sheet mentions the roles of each of the auditors and details how they helped Thomas to keep the irregularities in the bank away from the Central bank’s scanner.

Kirdat, a CA from Bhandup, served as the concurrent auditor of PMC Bank from 2005 to 2019. The charge sheet mentions that Kirdat was “closely associated” with Thomas.

Lakdawala conducted audits from 2017 to 2019, when the fraud was actually perpetuated at PMC Bank, the charge sheet stated. “During the course of investigation it was revealed that Lakdawala got his appointment as statutory auditor at PMC Bank at the behest of his proximity with Jayesh Sanghani, who was closely associated with Thomas. Both were furnishing statutory audits to the bank as desired by Thomas,” stated an excerpt from the charge sheet.

An EOW officer, requesting anonymity, said, “The auditors made way more than ₹1 crore as fees for conducting the misleading audits. The amount is comparatively higher than the usual amount paid to auditors for carrying out audits. We have mentioned the exact amounts paid to the auditors for conducting favourable audits in the charge sheet.”

Earlier, EOW had filed a 33,000-page charge sheet against the first five accused including Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL)’S promoters Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan, and Thomas.